London Jazz Festival preview

I did a London Jazz Festival preview of Babel artists on the Londonjazz blog. So check it all out.
Can't recommend too highly all of the bands. Great that trioVD particularly will be at ICA on 19th. This venue is in peril of closing. So support them in this iconic venue.

Three gigs to watch out for over the next week

Amit Chaudhuri - Vortex Saturday
Author and singer Amit Chaudhuri launches his new album Found Music (coming out on the Babel-Vortex label) this Saturday at the Vortex. Amit is known for his novels and cultural essays, but is equally a singer. This gig will show that to be the case. www.vortexjazz.co.uk

Richard Faihurst Triptych, Sam Leak - Pizza Express. Monday
Richard's new album just got a 4 star review in the Guardian. He "reappraises the classic piano-trio approach with varied original material". Meanwhile Sam Leak will contrast with his new band. (Recording to come out on Babel soon.) www.pizzaexpress.co.uk

Carsten Daerr Trio, Tom Arthurs/Richard Fairhurst - Vortex Thursday
Carsten Daerr leads a great dynamic piano trio from Berlin. Highly rhythmic, highly charged. Playing opposite them are the duo of  Tom Arthurs and Richard Fairhurst. Their next album on Babel, first performed at the Proms last year, will be the second for this duo on Babel. www.vortexjazz.co.uk

I started looking through the London Jazz Festival programme for Babel-oriented gigs. There are lots this year. Makes a change from a few years ago! Further information soon.

Where does the money come from?

According to today's FT, the main private sponsorship of the arts is to London and outside has suffered. Local corporate sponsorship is really difficult to get in the regions - there's less of it. So, for jazz and music, I can see that more of this sponsorship would be geared to festivals, because it makes a bigger splash in media terms than the "drip drip" of helping a smaller venue.
Similarly in London for a club like The Vortex. Dalston is in the regions as much as Dewsbury.
So two conclusions are reached in my view for now. First, public funding should be geared to helping the day-to-day. Second, the best way to fill the gap for a venue is to promote the voluntary activity and door money, i.e. lots of small amounts of money from individuals rather than large lumps. Much as the latter are desirable and not to be ignored, the work is harder to find it and grab hold of it.

Brit jazz

What a horrid name! But it seems to have stuck. And by making a festival, Ronnie Scotts is to be applauded for focussing on this scene for the next weeks. It's the tip of a vibrant iceberg of jazz!
I hope that it is not forgotten that British jazz is not to be thought of as something that only emerges when it hits Ronnie's in this way, or for the 10 days of the London Jazz Festival.
 People need to be reminded that there is jazz year round at places like the Vortex, 606 and Bull's Head where, between them, the programmes cover the musicians featured at Ronnie's. Ronnie Scott's puts on many of them anyway as the year goes on. And then all the other venues, like The Hideaway.
Musicians in the scene run the risk of being relegated to a few festival gigs a year. We have fewer and fewer club venues or similar. Especially with knowledgeable part-timers like Leeds Jazz pulling out.  We need the chance for musicians to play all over the place all year round.
I have been hearing great reactions to the quality of the scene here from a few people abroad, such as from Skopje and Strasbourg. We don't - yet - have to travel that far to hear our own local guys.
(By the way, surprised that Christine Tobin hasn't been booked for it. Maybe put her at the top of the list for 2011, Simon and Paul?)

Well done, Kit

So good that the Mercury Prize once again recognises a top quality musician like Kit Downes. However, it should not be regarded as the only style that Kit is involved with. He is such a perennially curious soul whos is fuelled by music. And the more he seems to experience, the better it becomes. So, neither is it the only side of Kit, and nor should it be viewed as the definitive. Take the work that he is doing with Golden Age of Steam (with a new album on Babel) and Barbacana.
Also we must not forget the record labels involved. All the jazz releases who have received recognition over the past decade or so have been on small UK labels. And certainly none have been dismissed by the Mercury Prize as "token" - that's something to be left to a few ignorant pop journalists. Jazz is an important element of the UK music scene which is in a very dynamic state. Many musicians elsewhere are using jazz musicians themselves or return to jazz as a way of developing new ideas. Examples include the likes of Fyfe Dangerfield who also is involved with The Gannets.